Today's definitely a big day. The Google I/O keynote is about to start but some details of what will be announced are already public on the web. In particular it is clear - as was expected - that Google has released the source code for the VP8 video codec. VP8 of course is a supposedly high quality video codec which Google now owns after its acquisition of On2.

Not stopping there, Google set up a new media file format called WebM. You heard it here first :-) I can tell you you will hear a lot more about this very soon, and for a long time to come.

So what is WebM? According to Google it is 'an open, royalty-free media file format designed for the web. WebM files consist of video streams compressed with the VP8 video codec and audio streams compressed with the Vorbis audio codec. The WebM file structure is based on the Matroska media container.' Wow. That's pretty awesome and could definitely a game changer.
WebM is also royalty free. As they explain: "Some video codecs require content distributors and manufacturers to pay patent royalties to use the intellectual property within the codec. WebM and the codecs it supports (VP8 video and Vorbis audio) require no royalty payments of any kind. You can do whatever you want with the WebM code without owing money to anybody. " Well, I think one should add that we will need to wait and see about possible patent trolls coming out of the woodwork once they had a look over the VP8 source code. At least Google is well used to fighting attacks like this so let's see how this plays out. So to sum up, WebM is 100% free (at least initially), and open-sourced under a BSD-style license.

Also interesting is the WebM supporters page. There are many well known companies and brands listed including FireFox, Opera, Android, Chrome and - wait for it - Adobe Flash Player. Wowzers. Maybe we'll hear more about this at the keynote? VP8 in Flash Player would be sweet. The keynote starts in 10 minutes (from the time I type this). One logo notably missing from the supporters page is that of Apple. But that does not mean anyone is missing them.